American sculptor and Conceptual artist Kiki Smith is known for looking at the human form from the inside out. One example is her sculpture consisting of a pair of life-size wax nudes: a man and a woman, dangling side by side as if crucified. The figures, with their yellowed skin, blank faces, and dr

Biomorphic, Erotic, Modern sculpture, Sincere, Visceral

If you walk into a room and find everything you held dear in childhood degraded, chances are it's a Paul McCarthy installation. McCarthy is known for shocking, sexually charged pieces that feature benign cartoon and pop-culture characters -- Olive Oyl and Santa Claus, among others -- in a bacchanalia

Angry, Biomorphic, Erotic, Modern sculpture, Perverse, Phallic, Primal, Visceral

As a dancer, teacher, and choreographer of almost mythic stature, Martha Graham loomed over American dance. She created a technique that married energetic force to form; an entire new dance vocabulary resulted from her study of the dynamics of breath. Calling her dance creations "a graph of the heart

Biomorphic, Geometric, Moody, Mythic, Pioneering, Religious, Spare, Tense

Alvar Aalto was one of Finland's first Modernists. His unique architectural style is characterized by asymmetry, curved lines, and contrasting natural materials. His early works were flavored with a "heroic functionalism" that was based around the idea that a structure's use should determine its form

Biomorphic, Clean, Intimate, Modernist architecture, Nordic sensibilities, Post-war scandinavian design, Round, Tranquil